Partitioning (XP Pro)

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I have recently reinstalled the OS and created several partitions. Now, familiarity with partitioning is relatively new to me and I have read a lot of different ways to organize such for performance and safety. As the screenshot below shows, I have the the OS on 17GB C:, the Paging file on 608MB E: and most of my programs on 11GB F:.

First, I wish to have some input from those who utilize multiple partitions as to whether the fashion I have this set up is Good, Bad, or Ugly.

Second, I have noticed my paging file never becomes fragmented – is that typical? Or perhaps is it not being used properly the way I have it set up? (I do have the virtual memory set for all drives pointing to E:)

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Well, I think your colour scheme is pretty ugly

My understanding is that if you set the same min-max size on your page file, that space is reserved in a single block – especially if it is done the way you have on virgin disc space. Therefore it simply cannot become fragmented. Normally it is not possible to defragment a fragmented page file anyway – if you have set a fixed size for your page file, just forget about it. (Apart from regular chkdsk’s, of course!)

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Bruce, Partitioning is a subject sure to bring out many opinions. And I have several. If you have one physical drive, partitioning is IMHO more for your organizational sanity than anything. For safety sake, what you’ve done is fine. Safety from OS corruption & accidcental things. You might even was to separate your data from programs in yet another partition. But, if you have a physical problem with a drive you’re hosed anyway. Regular backups are the best safety net. I doubt that you’ll see a performance improvement and if you measure such things you may see a decrease with several partitions on the same physical drive. You can do a search in Google (or whatever) to find many discussions on partitioning & performance. For the optimum in performance & safety you need multiple physical drives on multiple channels (either internal or external). And regular backups (yeah I know I’m being redundant).

Joe

--Joe

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Second Joe’s comments, Bruce. EVERYTHING I’ve read on the subject of the swap file (including here) says that you should put it on a separate drive, your fastest spec’d drive, on the secondary IDE channel, otherwise you might see a performance degradation.

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A further observation to Al’s comments….if you place the swap file on a separate partition but on the same physical drive, you are also creating a situation where the drive heads are forced to physically move to the area of the disk where the swap file lives and back again. In other words, you’re forcing the system to add extra cycles because you’re waiting on something mechanical.

That said, I personally try put the swap file by itself to prevent fragmentation of it, which is a far worse performance hit. The performance difference between having the swap file alone on a different partition (on the same drive) and in the same partition as the OS is undetectable. Benchmarks might show some difference but in the real world where people work and play it’s next to impossible to tell a difference.

If you have a additional drives, even if they aren’t the fastest, it’s prudent to split your swap file across all physical drives. I feel this is a better solution than just moving it lock, stock and barrel to a different drive. If the swap file is called, Windows can access both IDE channels at the same time and reduce read time. If the system doesn’t use the swap file much, you can reduce its size a little or just smile because you’ve got a machine with enough RAM that Windows doesn’t need to use the disk.

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Thanks, all!

Yeah, it might be time for that visual style to take a hike!

Okay that makes sense about the dedicated swap file and lack of fragmentation as compared to the way it was previously.

Performance….I am not sure if an increase exists or it appears so in my head as a result of organizational satisfaction, but I will definitely concur on the back-ups. I had decided on a whim out of boredom to back up everything the night before my HDD physically crashed. Backing up redundant? Yes, precisely so! Backing up redundant? Yes, precisely so!

I am using Diskeeper full and defrag in just minutes. I would like to smile for the sake of lots of RAM, but am maxxed out. I prefer to use mobile desktops so I am thinking about custom configuring an Alienware unit with 512-1024DDR-RAM and all the other top components. The way I look at it, if you are spending 2-3K, another couple hundred is not gonna break you to alleviate any concerns. Also, I am still shopping for a separate external HDD, which seem to change faster than page loads!

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Bruce–
Just quickly to say you have done fine in that you put your page file on a different partition; you have your programs protected on a different partition from the one OS you are using. You have put My Documents onto a different drive than “C”, “E” in this case and that’s preferable, so that if you crash “C” but not the other drives, they are now in a safe haven.

The page file:[/i] Rarely is page file fragmentation a big deal–unless and until it is seriously fragmented. There is a work around to defragment it, because Windows holds it open while you work, so it isn’t consolidated. If you want to truly know if your page file is fragmented, then look at the Disk Defragmenter’s Analysis Report. You can tweak the page file size to get better performance–as I think you know XP defaults to 1.5 times your RAM and the max is 3.0 X your RAM, and tweaking it isn’t near as good as getting more RAM. It lives in a hidden file called Pagefile.sys in the root of your system drive which for you is “C.”

BTW you can defrag your page file with the native defrag in XP; but you will need something like the full Diskeeper if you want to defrag the Master File Table. I would defrag the Page File whether it “looks like” it needs it or not. No down side there.

There are a lot of people who advocate making the OS drive as small as possible, and I put this question on a thread a couple months ago. Peter Norton’s new XP book has a couple pages where he debates the pros and cons of this for a couple pages.

It’s been said before, but the makers of the defragger you are using from Exec Soft bluntly have told me several times that if you don’t have 30% free space on a drive you’re defragging your defrag will be compromised significantly, and if you have any drive full to the gills you are just wasting your time to try to run defrag.[/i] I finally did what they said and moved some of my larger applications to another drive to get around 33% free space on “C” and now I send my downloads to other drives so as not to make any one of them to full. When I defrag now, which is often–it takes little time and I get a lot better performance zip from it.

Enjoy your new hard drive.

defrag

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Bruce–if you should ever need to defrag your page file–here’s the workaround to do it. I think especially since you love to tinker and tweak–you (or anyone) should download the free full Diskeeper 7.0 and run it or set it–it takes me just a few minutes–and I have 80 GB divided into four partitions–now that I make sure I have at least 30% free space–and I the performance is definitely noticably better for me with the full one than say Norton Speed Disk in Sys Wks or the intrinsic XP defrag. IMHP it’s one of the most useful pieces of software I have in my little bundle:

How to Defrag your Page File Using Win XP’s Defragger: (The “Work-around”)[/i]
_________________________________________________________________________
Ctrl Panel>Doub. Ck. Sys icon>Adv Tab(or Win +Pause Bk. Key>Adv.Tab)>Adv Tab of Performance Options Dialogue Box>Click Change Under Virtual Memory>From list of drives choose volume other than[/i] the one that holds your page file–this’ll hold your temp page file.>Choose custom size>enter settings in Initial Size and Maximum Size boxes to match your current page file (which I advise you to kick up to 1000 or 1200 if you have 256MB RAM or double if you have 512–you can go up to 3000).>Click Set>Reboot to allow your system to stop using the old page file and begin using the new one>Defrag the drive that prev. held your page file–this’ll consolidate the free space on that volume so the new page file will be stored in contiguous space>Repeat first 6 steps , this time creating a page file on the original disk and eliminateing the temp>Reboot and your newly defragmented page file will take over.
___________________________________________________________________________

You always need more than one volume available if you are going to recreate the page file in XP–the second to create a temporary page file.

I thought there was no way to defrag the mft with the XP defragger, but I have found a way you can–it’s long and entails two reg hacks–but you love those–email/PM me if you want it and I’ll give it to you that way. I would just use the regular Diskeeper 7.0 to do this–and I believe it is well worth doing. It increases my speed.

defrag

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Thanx, Frag, but I have the full version of Diskeeper and defrag the swap & MFT.

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Defrag,

you (or anyone) should download the free full Diskeeper 7.0 and run it or set it–it takes me just a few minutes

I have to ask where you find the above quoted free download. I search and only come up with versions to buy. I don

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I can answer that one. It’s a licensing question, not performance. I have Diskeeper 7 on this XP Pro machine and it’s on a small network. Diskeeper works just fine (every morning while I SLEEP!)

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Al,

Do I remember that you also run Goback? If so, does Diskeeper cause it to stop because of massive disk activities?

Thanks.

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No sorry, twasn’t me – I don’t use GoBack.

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Defrag or Al,

Help!

With my small Linksys network, which version of Diskeeper shown below do I want to download? My guess is the Workstation version but my XPP machine could be a stand alone device if I disconnect the other 2 machines so I

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You want WORKSTATION software, in my opinion. If you have a small peer-to-peer network, technically you don’t have a “server.” Also technically, I think the question you’re heading toward without actually saying it, is one of licensing. If you want to run a piece of software on more than one machine, that’s a question of license.

Now, I’m gonna be honest here – I don’t know anything about Diskeeper SERVER software.

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Al,

Thanks.

You may find this hard to believe but I have no intention of using this on any other machine other than my XPP. When I install software on any of my computers I always buy the product. For instance I own 3 computers and I own 4 versions of Norton SystemWorks, 3 Office 97 Professionals and only 1 Office 2000 Professional. So I only run Office 2000 on my XPP machine. I do my best to keep everything above board and legal.

I tend to agree with you about the Workstation version but I read just a little further at Executive Software Diskeeper’s site and I chose the Server version because it seemed the most versatile. If I ever decided to use it on any other machine, I would purchase the lenience, that’s just the way I am.

I have already run it on my XPP machine and it is extremely fast and didn’t shut down my Goback. However, I had just used Norton’s Speed Disk yesterday so I will have to wait a week or so to really give it a good test.

Thanks for your help.

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No, I don’t find that hard to believe at all! You ought to try the “Set It And Forget It” (I think that’s what they call it). If your drives are already pretty optimized and you set it to run in the wee hours of the morning, you’ll never notice it. The only thing I’ve ever had go wrong with Diskeeper that I know of is that its timer got somewhat off from when I had manually set it and it was running after 6 AM when I’m often up and on this machine. I saw it running in the tray and thought what the heck. I went on with my browsing and email and the machine never seemed to skip a beat.

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Al,

I saw that option but I shut my machine down at night. I think I’ll have to find some other time that won’t inconvenience me when I am using the computer.

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If you let Diskeeper run with Smart Scheduling, it will automatically tailor its schedule to your usage patterns. In other words, it will defragment when you’re not actively using the computer. Like Al, I leave my machine up all the time so that it can perform maintenance whilst I slumber, and as such don’t use this feature, but it does work fairly well. Worth a shot!

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Mark,

Thanks, I’ll give that a try.

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I wanted to make sure I was posting clear info so I talked with Diskeeper tech support a minute ago, and want to link you to an updated download that got posted a few days ago that increases your options. I didn’t want to be confusing.

If you have all your networked machines in say, your den, and you can move to them in a chair with rollers on it, then you don’t need to by Diskeeper Server edition for the extra $150 or so bucks. But if you needed to link remotely and say at the extreme to service many machines, or you have machines scattered throughout your home and want to manage them from say, one room, then get one Diskeeper Server and the rest workstations. If you’re doing them manually, and don’t mind going from room to room, you don’t need the Server. If you’re on Set it and Forget it, on all the machines, and don’t feel the need to “check/monitor” them from one, then you don’t need one Server box. If you do want that convenience, then buy one Server box and the rest Workstation.[/i]

The new download/upgrade allows you some more options and it’s free for all of us who have Diskeeper 7.0 (It’s 7.0 422 Update–the middle option if you have Workstation like Al) Diskeeper 7.0 Second Edition

Whether you choose to “set it and forget it,” or do it “manually”–it only takes me a few minutes now–go to Actions>Priority. According to Tech Support, this will up your speed. Here’s a screen shot below–I have it prioritized for manual–because that’s my preference now, but if you are want set it and forget it just prioritize that option as highest–you’ll save .

I was using “Set it and Forget It,” and I like it well enough, but I noticed that at times with a lot of programs open as I shouldn’t but tend to do and music going, it tended to get in the way even though theoretically it should not. The support guys and Diskeeper/Exec Soft have found the same thing. What I do is to set it manualy to keep it out of the way.

Additionally, with this new update feature, according to the Diskeeper guys, you will get some added continguous free space (that’s all good stuff)–as you do some defrags with it, you will notice if you check your free space you will get more.

defrag

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Defrag,

Again, I

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hlewton ~

You do not need to uninstall the Server version. The Server version is the full version for XP Pro w/ the ability to do its job across a network and enable remote installations. Your Diskeeper is fine the way it is – a stable, powerful and invaluable tool.

To address your concern as to which update you should download, it would be the first one, Diskeeper Server version for Windows NT/2000/XP. Considering your usage pattern as presented in the lounge, I would recommend you skip the update and remain with the status quo of your Server edition. This is not a critical update and is little more than minor enhancements that don’t really add to performance. IMHO, Diskeeper is just fine without this. By default, your version already sets the execution priority of ‘set it and forget it’ to low.

If you peruse this read me file you will see there is nothing crucial that adds to the functionality of Diskeeper and this document is merely a review of Diskeeper functions as it stands.

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Bruce,

Thank. I’ll keep it installed. Now all I have to do is wait until it asks me to pay for it so I can make it legal.

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Hlewton–
Here’s how it stacks up. The server version costs $250. The workstation costs $49 for the disc, $45 without it. Unless you have the need within your home or small business to link to other workstations to do the defragging as a remote desktop defrag, then I wouldn’t spend the extra $205. From what you told us, you aren’t running a server operating system at home–you’re networking, but you’re running Win XPP. You aren’t running Win NT Server, Win 2000
Server, or Win 2000 Advanced Server on your machine. If you were say managing 50, 100, 1000 machines in some type of enterprise environment, then the server edition would be necessary.But you’re at home with Win XP Pro. I would 1) either “set it and forget it”, as Mark suggested–it works really well, but sometimes with programs open depending what they are, how many processes are running it can get in the way. But if not, you set it and forget it for $45 bucks on each machine. Or as I prefer, you have 30% or ball parks free space on the drives. You set it when the computers are free and I am defragging now in minutes. You have to walk to the other room and sit down and click on the defrag. Why would you need to give Exec Soft an extra $205. If you want convenience, ro run and monitor machines all over the house from one machine, buy one server box and the rest either all home or workstation. [/i]

My friend Bruce invokes a “stable, valuable powerful tool.” That sounds swell. But I don’t see at all one scintilla of increased stability, value, or power over Workstation or Home for that matter for $205. What Bruce is calling “stability, value, and powerful” is merely the ability to link remotely or the convenience of running and monitoring all the others from one machine in say your den or home office.

Why? If your have machines being linked by a server off site at a distance–then I can see linking for the extra money. But they are not. Bruce said the server is the “full version for XP Pro.” That’s just not the case. Desktop/Workstation or Home work just peachy with XP Pro or Home–doesn’t matter has — nothing to do with XP Pro or Home as your choice of OS that’s being defragged. Server doesn’t have any XP Pro targeting code in it above and beyond the others. It’s about linking remotely[/i] period.

I wouldn’t recommend skipping the update unless you think it has a virus/or some hidden downside and it doesn’t. It takes 35 seconds. It’s free. It takes two mouse clicks. What do you get? Nothing crucial, but it allows you more options and it’s faster–1) you’re even in more of a hurry which wouldn’t matter with “set it and forget it” because everyone is using the computer and not thinking about defrag –it gives you the option to defragment the files without taking time to consolidate free space. 2) More importantly it will allow you to start moving files to the beginning of the disk and it increases continguous free space.[/i] 3) They improved the alogrighms so it defrags faster[/i] 4) It can be set for maximum disk performance.

I would blow off the server edition and put the $205 in my pocket in a home network setting. I fail to see the downside or reasons for skipping faster performance and more contiguous free space which could positively impact performance–or the new setting for max performance–particularly when the price for them is free with two mouse clicks.[/i] Whether you opt to give them $205 when you can set all the machines in your home or small business to “set it and forget it or not,” you will have software made by the company that makes 98% of the network defragmenters in the corporate market, so I hope you enjoy it.

defrag

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Defrag,

The $49.00 or $45.00 seems to be saying to buy the Diskeeper 7.0 Pro version, if I

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Yup–there is just no reason for you to waste the other $205 bucks with your system–you gain nothing. Now you can put that money toward something else you really want. I called their Tech Support because I wanted to understand the difference-it’s not like most Tech Support–little if any wait; glad to help. The site has some really great information/articles on hard drives, NTFS files, NT OS’s that apply to XP, and they make a great product that a huge number of people use, but I think they could explain the difference in their boxes better on their site. I read them your questions verbatim because I didn’t understand the difference.–I really have gotten something tangible from Diskeeper and wanted to pass it on; they said exactly what I posted.

Sure they want to make money but they didn’t see why you would need to spend the extra money for the server box on your home network( a set- up that has spread the last few years like wildfire) when you wern’t running something that links to machines off site or at a distance and you weren’t faced with the problem of ministering to a large volume of machines where you didn’t have time to visit every one.

And with “set it and forget it” you don’t have to sit down at each machine. Again–once I had the sense to free up some space on one partition with no free space–I am able to get defragged in minutes. I do it manually around every 3-4 days–doesn’t interfere with anything and by setting the little priority box it’s even faster. FWIW everyone I know who uses it wouldn’t use anything else and are highly satisfied with it. Having said that, I’m sure that the vast majority of people who use Speed Disk or have XP/ME/2000/98 and rarely defrag feel like they are just fine. I did run them all for a good while, and I feel I can see a real positive difference on this box now.

defrag

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Defrag,

Thanks. I was one of those who were satisfied with Speed Disk until Windows XP and a much larger hard disk. It took so long and had so much disk activity that it would shut down my Goback and that really bothered me because I count heavily on Goback to save me from myself. Diskeeper seems to work so fast that it isn’t bothering Goback and that is what I was looking for – speed and safety.

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Sounds like a happy ending to me. I’m getting ready to run mine now. It’ll be done in a few minutes–going to time it on “C” where most of my stuff is. I remember when I had ME and would run the full scan disk or defrag–with considerably less applications and files than I have now, and it took a long time and was a much bigger deal. Possibly there was something I could have known to set then–I don’t remember how full the disc was, but I didn’t have it divided into partitions and there couldn’t have been as much and it took considerably longer.

It should work out well for you. A lot of people like it.

defrag

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Defrag,

I really do like it so far. I even downloaded and installed it on a friend of mine

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Defrag or Anyone,

OK, I guess I have to ask this because I am just curious.

I have installed Diskeeper 7.0 on 2 Windows 98 machines so far, one of my computers and one of my friend

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Hlewton–

Ran your questions by Tech Support at Diskeeper to make sure you got most correct answer. The movement of the progress bar has nothing to do with time.[/i] First if any of these machines–4 years is um awhile but not the only one after hasn’t been defragged for a long time it can take quite a while. While CPU is somewhat of a factor, your main determinant factors are free space and the type and access/RPM of the hard drive. So remember in the butt- kicking contest that there may be some different handicaps in the race–free space of machines, hard drives, how they are formatted, how often and when last they were defraggmented and with which defragger. Contiguous free space and the hard drive you started with are at the top–but if you defrag one as “set and forget”or manually every day and one hasn’t been done in a long time–there might be a big difference in speed.

The way defragging takes place is that mapping pointers are swapped in the MFT or File Allocation table–and the file is copied so that if you were to have a crash or power out in the middle of the process, the worst that might happen is an incomplete copy into space incorrectly marked as allocated–easy to clean up so the original file will not be corrupted.

What’s going on is that alogrithms are being run to consolidate free space, and files that are already contiguous are being consolidated into larger contiguous files. If you have 20,000 files with 10 fragments each, and they have never been defragmented, Diskeeper will move the files around will have to move all over the disk several times. This is explained in detail in the free defrag manual (link in my earlier post).

Basically, in the case of that 40% example, all the files were defragged, and the free space consolidation alogrithms were running with increasing progress before it got to 40%–and that was where the fragmentation was located and the work needed to be done. When it got to the 40% mark, everything had been defragmented and the alogrithms to consolidate free space were finished running so it zipped on to finish.

On your “shut down Go Back question,” we couldn’t figure out exactly what you meant. I have had Roxio Go Back installed before–I have Far Stone’s Restore it now. Can you clarify that one?

If you want this explained further, or have more questions, don’t hesitate to email them at tech_support@executive.com[/i]. You won’t have the long wait that has been the hallmark at a lot of places. Don’t forget, the bottom line for speed and efficacy of defrag is to have 33% of free space on the drive.[/i]

defrag

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Defrag,

Thanks for the explanation. The only thing I

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If you defrag regularly, it will get much faster. That 4 year time period was huge–you did her a big favor–her times will get better and her performance should take a fairly positive hit.

Your machines will all get better as you defrag regularly, and I think you will come to find if you let it run a defrag on the MFT and Page File once in a while on both, prioritize for either manual or “set it and forget it” –try both and see which you like–that you’ll get down to minutes. You’ve done well by giving yourself that free space–it will make all the difference in the world soon.

The 30 day trial version is the full version that you can buy and will make no difference at all.
Lite doesn’t allow the automatic settings, but it’s free. The 30-day trial of 7.0 is exactly the same as the one you buy–nothing is held back. Don’t forget to go to the link over to the right of the site and get the update to 7.0, Version 2–it has some advantages –four and they are listed on the site including more consolidation of contiguous free space which is very important to the way Diskeeper works.

defrag

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Defrag,

I have already downloaded and installed the Version 2 update on my XPP machine where I purchased Diskeeper 7 Pro. Now, if I keep it on the Win 98 machines I have to decide which version to purchase for them. I

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Hlewton–Diskeeper doesn’t offer boot time defrag of the swap file (page file) in Windows 98; here’s the link to this at Diskeeper and KB240755: Information About Defragmenting the Windows Paging File also discusses this.

The KB 174619 How NTFS Reserves Space for its Master File Table(MFT) explains that the MFT is an architectural feature of the NTFS file system which does not exist in Win 98 or Win 9x. When you format a volume using NTFS, Win XP creates an MFT and metadata files. The MFT is a relational database that contains rows of file records and columns of file attributes. It contains one entry for every file on an NTFS volume, including the MFT itself.

defrag

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Defrag,

Thanks for the links. By the way, that one Win 98 machine with the 8 Gig. hard drive, which is a 6 or 7 year old Pentium 200 MMS, took slightly over 9 hours to defrag. On that machine, Speed Disk has never taken over an hour. I wonder why Diskeeper was so slow.

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Hlewton–
I had Chris Wheaton from Exec Soft/Diskeeper who has weighed in before to clarify Diskeeper and defrag carefully read the thread. Chris’s observations will help with your questions. Actually, Diskeeper has been working with Microsoft to put code into defragmenting the Windows OS with the native defragmenter since Windows NT 4–with the “move file API.” MS used a watered down version of Speed Disk until XP–now it uses a version made by Exec Soft.

As I said, if you want convenience to control your home network from say, your den, or home office space, with machines that are in other areas of your home, and want to spend $150 extra, you can buy one Diskeeper Server box and do it that way using workstation or home on your other machines. I would save the money, and just put either workstatrion or home on each machine and “set it and forget it” or manually do this but it will only take a 30 seconds to set up once you’ve defraged them if you give the drive enough free space–at least 20%–preferrably 33% and up. All depends on if you want to see them and run from one machine, or not.

The 98 machines and speed are impacted by the following:

1) Length of time they haven’t been defragged–one machine may have been four years I think you said. They’ll get faster.

2) The 98 machines were using Norton’s as their native defragger or in one or more you had Speed Disc. You need to remember this: You were dealing with FAT partitions on 98, and a Norton Defrag be it Native or Speed Disk. The defrag engines in Diskeeper are much faster than the ones for FAT, particularly on NT and XP. If you have FAT on an NT kernel like the 5.1 kernel in XP, efficiency is way down as a filing system. Theories that FAT speeds up the system, and NTFS drags it down don’t hold water.

Speed disk has a setting that claims to “optimize the disk” by moving files to the fastest part of the disk. This seems to be fiction–we’d like to know where and what that fastest part of the disk is. In fact, in the act of creating an “optimized area” Speed Disk fragments more files, which Diskeeper will find and have to spend more time cleaning up.

Compare Diskeeper to the built in defragmenter in 98, which is made by Norton with its setting “Rearrange program files so programs start faster.” If that checkbox is active, and you reanalyze with Diskeeper will find a number of fragmented files, and the reason is in “optimizing the disk” you will cause certain files to become defratmented as result of optimization–all it sees is fragmented files.

Other factors to watch out for are having enough free space–starting with a machine that hasn’t been defragged by Diskeeper as above, and make sure you have all antivirus software out of the way or it will slow you down. I unplug my cable modem and disable all Norton–AV and Internet Security. Also Speed Disk is tailored not to defrag certain files–Diskeeper will shift files around to consolidate and increase contiguous free space and Speed Disk simply does not have those alogrigthms to run–but the result will be a faster machine.

You can objectively compare if you want: Diskeeper writes the files defragged to an event log, and so does Speed Disk. The event log for Diskkeeper that you can enable and write to a floppy is dkeventlog.txt and you can compare what Diskeeper and Speed Disk with its log did.
Or you could take a fragmented file on your 98 machine–Ghost or Power Quest Drive Image the File, and compare using the logs the results on two identically fragmented drives with the same files. Use Product A to defrag and then restore the image and defrag with Product B.
Compare the logs. Diskeeper’s FAT engines will work much harder to give you contiguous free space in Windows 98 than Speed Disk.

If you Defrag with Diskeeper, and stop using Speed Disk, you will take care of those fragmented files that Speed Disk left for you–that’s one reason the back to back time was different. Diskeeper may well be defragging 3000 files in 3 hours and Speed Disk 300 in one hour–just a figure I picked from the air for illustration purposes. Keep using Diskeeper and you are going to get faster defrag and better performance–probably much better. Hope this helps.

defrag

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Defrag,

Yes it helps very much and I appreciate all your efforts. I will have to purchase the additional copies of Diskeeper when they get close to the 30 day expiration because I can

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Defrag,

I forgot one thing in my last post. I don

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I tried Diskeeper on another Win 98 machine that has been defragged by Speed Disk at least once a month for the entire 4 or 5 years that I have had it. I think that Diskeeper is extremely slow the first time it is used on any Win 98 machine that has been defragged by Speed Disk. Diskeeper appears to be arranging the disk totally differently than Speed Disk did. It has been over 3 hours on an 8 Gig. hard drive and judging by the graphics, it will be at least that much longer before it finishes.

I do believe that the next time Diskeeper is used it will be much, much faster.

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Hlewton–
Diskeeper 7.0 is trial ware for 30 days and it definitely will defrag your home network with your Linksys Broadband router. There is information on the site on this in detail:
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“The Diskeeper difference:
Diskeeper is completely networkable and allows you to control fragmentation remotely across any size network. Superlative networking functionality. Can schedule groups of disks of any size on any and all disk volumes on computers, workgroups or domains throughout the network. Also enables direct connection to a specific computer on the network and remote execution of all Diskeeper operations including analyzing and defragmenting disk volumes, setting schedules, configuring exclusion lists and setting run priorities.”
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You don’t need any large server enterprise edition to defrag across a home network.

Here’s a comparison to XP’s Defragmenter made by the same company:
Comparison to XP’s Defrag taken from KB231176:

Give it a shot. Download here. Compare it to your Speed Disk.

Here’s a good reference Why Diskeeper? and here’s a Free Book:Defragmentation: The Condition, the Cause, the Cure.

defrag

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Defrag,

Thanks for all the info. I think I will give it a try.

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